Gold Coast mother who dressed daughter in ‘Playboy outfit’ for rape jailed for 10 years

A Gold Coast mother held her daughter’s hand as she was raped. She sat motionless when her sentence was handed down in court.

A GOLD Coast mother who dressed her nine-year-old daughter in a Playboy outfit and held her hands as men raped her sat silent as she was jailed for 10 years.

The woman’s calm reaction was in sharp contrast to her demeanour in March when she was found guilty in the Southport District Court to multiple offences, including maintaining a relationship with a child, deprivation of liberty and three counts of rape.

At that time she wailed and curled up into a ball, her dyed plum hair in a wild mess.

Appearing via video link in both the Southport and Brisbane District Courts on Tuesday, the 41-year-old sat virtually motionless in a blue prison shirt and her hair — now brown — was pulled back neatly.

The woman, who cannot be named in order to protect the girl, had her sentencing delayed in order to obtain psychological reports.

She was found not to have a mental illness.

The woman cannot be named to protect her daughter.

Judge David Kent sentenced her on Tuesday to 10 years and declared her a serious violent offender. That means she will have to serve 80 per cent of her sentence before being eligible for parole.

“Your conduct was enabling or aiding others to commit sexual acts on the complainant,” he said.

“This is extremely serious offending and ... I am not particularly convinced of prospects of rehabilitation.”

The woman has already spent 20 months in custody.

The horrific details of the year-long abuse from about May 2014 were heard throughout a week-long trial.

The girl, now 15, was in hospital on suicide watch during the trial.

In video evidence the girl told the court how she was repeatedly woken by men lying on top of her. She was dressed in a “Playboy outfit” consisting of “bunny ears” and a black, lacy dress.

The mum’s disturbing actions were discovered when the young girl wrote a note to her psychologist in July 2016.

“When I was in bed, mum used to come in with friends and touch me improperly (sic),” she wrote.

She said her mother would “undress her and be naughty” and on “some occasions she would wake up in weird clothes”.

GOLD COAST MOTHER ACCUSED OF DAUGHTER’S RAPE, TORTURE

The girl also described being given alcohol before some of the offending.

The full details of what was done to her are too horrific to repeat.

The abuse occurred while the girl’s father was in prison for drug offences.

The woman also had a history of drug use, the court was told on Tuesday.

Crown prosecutor Gary Churchill said during sentencing proceedings: “I have described it as abhorrent, the child was very young ... it was systematic sexual abuse by at least three different men while the complaiant was asleep in the safety of her own bed.”

He said there was no clear motive for the behaviour.

Defence barrister John McInnes, instructed by Legal Aid Queensland, said the offending was a “result of a particular set of circumstances” and that the woman had no previous sexual offending.

He said it was unlikely she would reoffend.

Mr McInnes also provided a letter of support from the woman’s older daughter.

The woman was sexually abused as a child and had been in a string of abusive relationships, it was alleged.